He shook his head, wishing he understood what that something was. Since yesterday, when she had returned from the Crake with Bek after completing a mission he would have put a stop to in a minute had he known about it, she had come down here at every opportunity. She had taken up watch over the witch, as if to see what would happen when she woke, as if trying to ascertain what manner of creature she really was. At first, he had thought she was waiting for an opportunity to finish her off. But as time passed and opportunities came and went, he had begun to wonder. This wasn’t about revenge for Hawk and the others,—this was about something else. Whatever it was, he was baffled.
He pushed open the door to his cabin, and there she was, sitting next to Bek’s sister, holding her hand and staring into her vacant eyes. It was such a strange scene that for a moment he simply stood there, speechless.
“Close the door,” she said quietly, not bothering to look over.
He did so, then moved to where she could see him, and knelt at Quentin Leah’s bedside for a moment, placing his fingers on the Highlander’s wrist to read his pulse.
“Strong and steady,” Little Red said. “Bek was right. She saved Quentin’s life, whether she intended to or not.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” he asked, standing up again, giving the Highlander a final glance. “Trying to decide if it was an accident or not?”
“No,” she said.
“What, then?”
“I’m trying to find out where she is. I’m trying to figure out how to reach her.”
He stared at her, not quite believing what he was hearing. She was leaning forward as she sat in front of the witch, her face only inches away. There was no fear in her green eyes, no suggestion that she felt at risk. She held Grianne’s hands loosely in her own, and she was moving her fingers over their smooth, pale backs in small circles.
“Bek said she was hiding from the truth about herself, that when the magic of the Sword of Shannara showed her that truth, it was too much for her, so she fled from it. Walker told him that she would come back when she found a way to forgive herself for the worst of her sins. A tall order, even to sort them all out, I’d think.” She paused. “I’m trying to see if a woman can reach her when a man can’t.”
He nodded. “I guess it’s possible it might happen that way.”
“But you don’t know why I have to be the one to find out.”
“I guess I don’t.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time, sitting silent and un-moving before Grianne Ohmsford, staring into her strange blue eyes. The Ilse Witch was little more than a child, Alt Mer realized. She was so young that any attempt to define her in terms of the acts she was said to have committed was impossible. In her comatose state, blank-faced and unseeing, she bore a look of complete innocence, as if incapable of evil or wrongdoing or any form of madness. Somehow, they had got it all wrong, and it needed only for her to come awake again to put it right.
It was a dangerous way to feel, he thought.
She looked over at him. ‘I’m doing it for Bek,” she said, as if to explain, then quickly turned her attention back to Grianne. “Maybe because of Bek.”
Alt Mer moved to where she could no longer see him, doubt clouding his sunburned features. “Bek doesn’t expect this of you. His sister isn’t your responsibility. Why are you making her so?”
“You don’t understand,” she said.
He waited for her to say something more, but she didn’t. He cleared his throat. “What don’t I understand, Rue?”
She let him wait a long time before she answered, and he realized afterwards that she was trying to decide whether to tell him the truth, that the choice was more difficult for her than she had anticipated. “I’m in love with him,” she said finally.
He wasn’t expecting that, hadn’t considered the possibility for a moment, although on hearing it, it made perfect sense. He remembered her reaction to his decision to take Bek with him into the Crake while leaving her behind. He remembered how she had cared for the boy when Hunter Predd had flown him in from the mountain wilderness, as if she alone could make him well.
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